A young trans woman's views on politics, media, and whatever else strikes her fancy, including speaking in the third person.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Book Review ~ Fallout Equestria by Kkat

War. War never changes. But ponies do, apparently.

Fallout Equestria starts off in a very similar vein to Fallout 3. The heroine, LittlePip, whose cutie mark is a PipBuck personal computer thing (which she compares to having a cutie mark of a cutie mark), leaves the Stable where she was born to find the missing Velvet Remedy. What follows is an epic adventure through the Equestria Wasteland as LittlePip discovers the magic of friendship and overpowered weaponry.

I'll be honest. I started reading Fallout Equestria expecting to be.. well, not that big a fan of it. While I love the source materials, Fallout and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, the thought of subjecting adorable ponies to the horrors of post-apocalypse life is kind of disturbing. And my expectations of disturbing subject matter were met in spades.

But for all that, it's really a very good story. Kkat's experience as a storyteller and dungeon master are obvious as you follow LittlePip and her friends (Friendship is Magic!) through harrowing adventures, close escapes, comedy, tragedy, and romance (Yes, pony romance. Yes, it's adorable). She drags you kicking and screaming into the Equestria Wasteland, and never lets you go, each chapter providing a hook into the next that will have you reading until your eyes bleed.

Fallout Equestria is not 'hard' sci-fi by a long shot. And that's all right. In many ways it is more fantasy than sci-fi, complete with dragons, hydras, magic, and many of the usual fantasy elements, but it is a fantasy world that has moved into a more futuristic setting. Many of the machines and gadgets found in most science-fiction worlds exist in Fallout Equestria as well, but powered by magic, or 'Arcane Sciences' as Twilight Sparkle would put it. This is part of what causes the book to mesh its disparate parts so well. A pony wearing a Pip-Buck can go into the equivalent of VATS by using built-in magic to slow down time, lining up shots in slow-motion. A flying vehicle only works by interfacing with the innate magic of a pegasus, giving it the same flying function as its pilot.

I will warn you though: if you are a Fluttershy, this book may not be for you. The Wasteland is not a forgiving place, and it is filled with monsters, both pony and non-pony. There were parts that gave me nightmares, and others that left me in tears. But this is one of the seminal works of My Little Pony fanfiction. And, if you can handle the emotions it brings, I highly recommend you read it.